The invention relates to the fabrication of substrates, in particular for optics, electronics or opto-electronics.
Substrates for use in the aforementioned fields are generally obtained industrially by cutting up ingots. In the case of monocrystalline silicon, for example, the ingots are obtained from a bath of molten silicon by the Czochralski drawing method (referred to hereinafter as CZ drawing) or from a polycrystalline ingot by the zone fusion method (referred to hereinafter as FZ drawing). These growing methods produce cylindrical ingots which are then cut into slices perpendicular to the axis of the cylinder, generally using an internal cut circular saw.
However, the above methods do not produce substrates with satisfactory dimensions for some applications. This applies in particular in the field of fabrication of large substrates that can be used to make flat or other shape display screens or solar cells.
To obtain larger monocrystalline silicon substrates, the document FR 2 752 768 proposes cutting ingots parallel to their longitudinal axis.